Birthday Sangria!

I've posted about the cake we had on my birthday, but I haven't yet posted about the sangria which I made!

Working on a budget sometimes means buying 3 Buck Chuck from Trader Joe's, which is ok because if you're making a sangria, you're mixing it up with various other flavors anyways.

As you can see, there were three kinds of sangria present during my birthday bash. We served them in gold cups, but for picture purposes I used glassware. To the left is the sauvignon blanc, in the middle is the shiraz, and on the right is the white zinfandel.

Cooking in my house often means thinking fast on your feet. Often ingredients have multiple uses for various recipes. When I originally broached the idea of making sangria for the party, I didn't know what I was going to be using in it. I knew that most likely oranges and apples would be going into the red, and peaches usually go well with the white. Dede had made candied grapefruit peels, and we had the flesh of 2 large grapefruits left, as well as a large amount of grapefruit flavoured simple syrup. So I grabbed a bottle of the white zinfandel, resolved not to let the grapefruit go to waste. I had needed some extra fruit for the trifle (the canned peaches, or rather jarred at Trader Joe's) and picked up some fresh mint leaves as well. I love putting fresh mint into drinks. The sangrias (I use this term rather loosely) I make are usually different, as are the recipes I concoct. They usually involve trying not to let food in my fridge go to waste. Waste not, want not ...

Peach and Mint White Sangria:

1 bottle of Sauvignon Blanc, 1 jar/can of peaches (diced), the juice of 1 jar/can of peaches, and a large handful of finely chopped mint leaves.

*If you want to make this into a spritzer, just add seltzer. 

Sorry about the blurriness. My hand shook

Citrus and Pear Red Sangria:

Imagine to my surprise that there were no apples in the house. Bananas and apples are two fruit staples that are always in the house. My father literally eats 1 apple a day. Thankfully we had pears in the fridge.

2 bottles of Shiraz, 2 cups of orange juice, 2 lemons sliced into thin rounds, 1 large orange (or two medium sized) sliced into thin rounds, 1 Bartlett pear (large dice), 1 Asian pear (large dice)
*optional Cranberry Jelly

Ideally if I had had apples, I would have used them and sliced them into rounds for aesthetic purposes. I used the cranberry jelly because I had a jar of homemade cranberry jelly that I needed to use (these things don't keep long!). Cranberry jelly on the right, pictured below.

The star of the night - Grapefruit and Mint Sangria

I picked up that bottle of White Zinfandel because grapefruit is pink, and so is white zinfandel, and a pink drink is always so so pretty. It was a good thing we'd kept that simple syrup because the grapefruit was so bitter, we'd needed most of it to balance out the bitterness of the sangria.

1 bottle of White Zinfandel, 1 large grapefruit (segmented), a large handful of finely chopped fresh mint, 1/2 cup simple syrup.

You want to crush the grapefruit segments with a fork to get all the grapefruit juice, before pouring in the white zinfandel. Whisk in the simple syrup (I said about roughly 1/2 cup simple syrup but really add it to taste. If you prefer the bitterness of grapefruit, add less, if it's just too bitter for you, add more) before adding the chopped mint leaves.

Enjoy!